A/N: ZareEraz here! I know, I know! It's been, like, forever since I last updated this story but now I have plenty of time to write because I'm off of school...so hooray! On another note...I had such a hard time writing this chapter because there is almost no Watanuki/Doumeki interactions so I hope you're not too disappointed in the lack of Doumeki goodness in this chapter because the next one's all Watanuki/Doumeki! I hope you enjoy this chapter! :3

P.S. I totally forgot to mention the last couple chapters that my best friend, HeartQueenVivaldi has been helping me edit my chapters so shout out to her and if you like Ouran High School Host Club, you should check out her fic! Luvs Queenie! :3

Chapter Nine: The Reunion and The Unhappiness

The day found Watanuki in Yuko's kitchen preparing a meal for the extravagant witch fit for a king. And surprisingly enough, Watanuki was not in a horrible mood while cooking said meal. In fact, she was pretty cheerful for no particular reason. The girl hummed as she washed the rice and carefully poured out the water so she could form rice balls when her good mood vanished. And it just so happened that it vanished when two huge, heavy paws slammed into the girl's back and sent her bowl tumbling into the sink, the rice splattering everywhere as the big pipe fox glommed onto her shoulders and back. The pipe fox mewed, rubbing his head on the girl's shoulders as she growled and pried herself off of the counter.

"Stop it!" Watanuki sighed at the huge pipe fox. "Lay over there quietly, will you?" The fox whined. "Look what you did! There's rice everywhere. I should make you clean it up." The pipe fox whined again, rubbing its head against the girl's back. The seer sighed and washed the rice down the sink. She shrugged the fox off of her back and pointed over to the corner of the room. The pipe fox whined for the millionth time that day and went to go stand out of the way.

A little while later when Watanuki was dusting out the storehouse, the pipe fox followed her in there and stared flailing around and nearly broke several of Yuko's vases and boxes. Watanuki had to run around the room catching all the falling objects before they shattered on the ground and then put them back with a lot of grumbling and then had to reprimand the pipe fox for making the mess in the first place. By the time she got back to whacking her duster on everything she was irritated all over again.

"Sit still and behave, will ya? If you do that a little while longer I'll give you a treat later." The fox was pleased by this deal and started tapping two of its many tails on the ground in agreement, mirroring Watanuki's whacking with her duster. He whined in pleasure and tapped its tails again. Tossing his head, the fox kept rapping its tails on the floor, creating a cloud of dust that was quickly filling up the storeroom. Watanuki coughed twice and then stopped what she was doing to glare at the beast. Just as she was glaring, one of the tails smacked a round, gray vase and knocked it off the shelf just like before. Watanuki leapt into action, sliding on the ground on her belly and just barely catching the vase in both hands before it shattered on the floor. She sighed in relief. "That was a close one."

The pipe fox just rubbed his huge head on her back in response, giving her love.

Watanuki's next chore was also interrupted by the pestering creature and now it was getting to the point where Watanuki went from irritated to full on wrathful. She was sitting outside washing Yuko's clothes in a big wooden bucket and the pipe fox just had to sit behind her, his paws and head on her shoulders, flipping from one side to the other as he barked and whined.

"Would you please…can't you just go for a walk or something?" Watanuki sighed. The fox just gave a little howl that probably meant "no." Watanuki's head dropped in disappointment and she ground her teeth together in frustration. The pipe fox snuggled in closer. Watanuki's teeth ground harder. The pipe fox snuggled closer…and the girl went ballistic.

"Look at him!" She shrieked, her handkerchiefed head snapping towards Yuko (who was enjoying her afternoon by drinking and watching Watanuki struggle). She and her little court were sitting next to a huge sake bottle, all of them just sitting there all prim and proper. Maru and Moro both were still wearing the summer versions of their devil and angel outfits, Yuko was in a green kimono with white lilies embroidered on the fabric paired with a yellow obi and Mokona was naked for all intents and purposes (or at least the creature had its fur on).

"Hmm?" The witch replied, holding her sake cup daintily.

"I can't take this! Is he going to be this size forever?!" Watanuki shot back.

"Aw, I think it's adorable." Yuko answered. "I just think he wants to show you how much he loves you, right girls?" She turned towards Maru and Moro.

"Aw! Cute! So cute!" They chorused, clasping their hands together and wiggling from side to side.

Yeah he's precious and I'm happy that he likes me," Watanuki started, but he was interrupted by the pipe fox with a whine. "But look at him!" That was the moment the pipe fox decided that it would be a good idea to climb onto Watanuki, sitting his butt on the girl's back and forcing her down with its weight. "He's too-ug-dependent and he-ow-won't leave me alone-ouch-for five-ug-seconds! How am I supposed to do laundry?!" Watanuki stood up with a burst of strength and threw the suffocating pipe fox off of her back and whirled on it, pointing at the creature. "SIT!"

The fox just mewled at her.

"See? He doesn't even listen to me." She grumbled. Suddenly a noise startled the girl. It was a rock hitting her washing tub and she whirled around to see who threw it. She couldn't see anyone. The pipe fox just rubbed his head on her arm. "Awww…all I want is just a few minutes of peace and quiet!" The girl slumped down into her seat to start washing again. Yuko just looked out in the direction from where the rock came from, not saying a word. Watanuki began scrubbing again and the pipe fox took up his position on her back, his long fingered paws wrapping around her shoulders and his head rubbing her shoulders. "Just stop it."

Another rock thumped against the wash tub and Watanuki snapped up. She thought she saw someone hiding behind the corner of the house. "Who's there?" Unsurprisingly, she didn't get an answer. So, the seer decided to check it out and walked around the side of the shop, holding onto her trusty broom in case it was a creeper. Unsurprisingly, the pipe fox tagged along. On her back.

"Ug, these piggy back rides were a lot easier when you were your normal size." The pipe fox just hung on in response, tightening his grip on the girl's shoulders and hips, his tails dragging in the dirt. Another pebble plunked on the ground, drawing the girl's attention to the well behind the shop. On the well's edge there was a package wrapped up in paper and string. Watanuki took a few heavy steps forward and looked at the parcel. "What is that?" Watanuki set her broom aside and picked up the package. She and the pipe fox both cocked their heads and wondered what it could be. As the girl picked it up, a single blue fire fly drifted up into the air. Both the girl and the fox watched it float away and disappear.

"Was that…was that a fire fly?" Watanuki asked. She looked down at the package and watched as four more fire flies drifted up from her hand. "More? In this season?" Zashiki-warishi..? Suddenly, the pipe fox leapt off of Watanuki's back and sailed behind her to land on the ground, sitting properly with his tails wagging in anticipation. Watanuki watched the tails for just a moment as their movements became even happier and then looked at the parcel in her hand and pulled the string, opening it. Inside lay seven strips of fried tofu. "It's fried tofu. But who is it from?" The girl asked, holding up a piece of tofu. Her intuition was right that the pipe fox wanted what was in it turned out the be true when the creature jumped to his feet and snagged the food right out of her hand, startling her. The fox walked a little ways off and then goggled the tofu in one gulp before lying down.

"Huh? Since when do foxes eat fried tofu?" Watanuki asked the pipe fox. He just whined at her again. She looked at the tofu in surprise. It actually made the pipe fox behave for once. But as she was marveling at the snack's ability to calm the fox, she didn't notice that one of the pipe fox's forehead markings had disappeared.

The rest of the evening went swimmingly at Yuko's shop because the pipe fox just calmly sat next to Watanuki as she completed her tasks for the day. There was no whining, no shoving, no asphyxiating, no jumping and no squishing and it was just perfect. The girl left the shop with only a little trouble when the pipe fox wanted her to stay and did end up finally tackling her to the ground in a last ditch effort to stop her from going. Watanuki just shoved the fox off with all the strength and ran out the door as fast as she could, promising to play with him the next day. After school the next day, Watanuki was in a really good mood, walking along after school with Wari and the fact that Doumeki was there too only ticked her off a little bit.

"I'm getting hungry; do you guys want to stop for a snack?" Wari asked after a little while.

"Of course!" Watanuki instantly agreed, blushing and smiling at her crush. "What do you feel like?"

"I'm really craving chocolate crepes. That sounds wonderful!" She flipped her head to glare at Doumeki who was walking on the other side of her and growled. Why does this creep always have to come with us?!

"Wow. Those look nice." Wari had stopped to look in a shop window when Watanuki wasn't paying attention and the girl had to scramble backwards to get back to him.

"What is it, Wari?" The girl sang, blushing again. "Hm?" The seer looked at the window, staring into a display of necklaces and hair accessories. I didn't know Wari was into this stuff…should I be worried? Watanuki gave the cute boy a once over out of the corner of her eyes and wondered if that's why he acted so feminine sometimes.

"I'm going to go look inside, okay? One of my cousin's birthdays is coming up soon and I want to see if I can find her something nice. Wari walked away from the display and into the store. Watanuki looked up at the store's sign, KELLA, and considered following the boy. It's not like she was into really girly stuff like jewelry and accessories (and the fact that spirits tended to hide in pretty things or old antique jewelry had quite a bit to do with it), but it might be nice to take a look around inside.

"It's a jewelry store. I guess this is the kind of things girls are supposed to like." Watanuki thunked her forehead onto the window and kept staring at the necklaces.

"Is this the kind of stuff you like too? Come on you can tell me." Doumeki was half teasing, mostly because Watanuki wasn't a girly girl to begin with, but it would be cute if she had a bit of a girly side.

"No way! I'm not that girly!" The seer denied, waving her hand in the air. But, despite her denial, Watanuki and Doumeki both ended up in the shop with Wari. After looking around for a minute, Wari walked up to the counter with a pair of hair elastics, adorned with pink flowers.

"I'll take this." He said, holding out the package to the clerk.

"Is this for a girlfriend?" The clerk asked nicely.

"Nope!" Wari smiled. "My cousin. Her birthday is coming soon."

"How sweet! Would you like this wrapped up?"

"Yes, please. Can I get a pink ribbon to match the flowers?" Wari asked politely.

"Of course!" The clerk wrapped up the pins and gave it back to the teenage boy.

"Oooo." Watanuki admired the gift and then turned back to her own browsing. She walked past a display of hair pins and started looking at all the different types. So this is what girls want. It's so silly, and yet, interesting at the same time. Watanuki had never had experiences of receiving or shopping for stuff like this, since her parents died when she was young, she never had someone to dote on her and everything she bought was so that she could live on her own, not so she could be frivolous. It never crossed her mind that she could buy this stuff for herself. The seer scanned the pins to see if there was something she liked when her eyes fell on a set of pins with white wings at the top. They would be the perfect gift for a certain sprite. To repay her for the tofu she left at the well. Watanuki's hand came up to pick the pins when a certain voice startled her.

"Are those for you?" Doumeki asked. Watanuki's hand slapped down on her leg as she turned around blushing in embarrassment.

"NO!" She flapped her hand in the air again. But in the end, she purchased the wing pins and had them gift wrapped, placing them carefully in her skirt pocket so she'd have them with her the next time she saw Zashiki-Warishi. Little did she know that after she'd walked out of the shop, Doumeki made a purchase of his own before he joined them again.

After the little shopping trip, Watanuki walked to Yuko's shop to do her work. Unfortunately, as she walked through the gate, the pipe fox (who had been sitting patiently on the porch for her to show up) ran up and pounced on the shrieking girl.

"No! No! No! N-n-n-n-ooooo!" The girl collapsed to the ground as the fox's weight pushed her down. She crawled into the shop with the fox on her back and finally got fed up and yelled at the pushy creature so she could at least make it to the kitchen and put on her apron.

"Alright!" Watanuki threw on her apron and tied her head-kerchief on tightly, opening Yuko's cupboards. "Maybe tonight I'll make some Miso soup and poooorrrrkkk-!" Watanuki's last word was dragged out as the pipe fox pounced on her again, throwing her upper body into the cupboard at he clung to her. "C-cut it out, will you?!" The girl wheeled on the beast and gave it her best pissed-off face. "If you don't behave I'm going to use your fried tofu in the Miso soup along with the pork, do you understand? Do you?" The girl held up the parcel of tofu up threateningly. The pipe fox sat down obediently, as if he knew exactly what she was saying.

"Good fox!" The seer smiled and unwrapped the tofu, throwing a piece to the pipe fox. He gobbled it up and licked his chops in satisfaction. "You're actually behaving! You must really like that stuff a lot!" Watanuki walked over to the beast and used to apron to wipe off his dirty snout, smiling happily. "Hold still for a second, you've gotten some of it on your face."

The pipe fox mewled and then lay down, content for the moment. "I guess I've finally found something that will calm you down for a little while. Right! Now I can get my chores done." Watanuki rolled up her sleeves up and got ready to work.

"You really should be careful how much of that stuff you give him." Yuko's voice startled Watanuki as the girl turned around.

"Huh?" The girl asked, looking at Yuko's extravagant outfit today as she leaned against the door with her arms folded. Yuko was wearing hip hugging, black pants with a low, bodice-like top in teal and black, the black lacy part barely covering her breasts. She had black armbands around her biceps and the teal collar extended up to her ears. To top off the look, the witch had a length of purple cloth thrown over both her arms and behind her back like a boa, she wore three separate gold earrings on each ear and her hair was twisted into two loops on the side of her head. Mokona was hanging off of her shoulder like it always did.

"I mean the fried tofu." The girl looked at the parcel and then hid it behind her back guiltily. "It is by far the pipe foxes favorite food, but it really isn't good for them. It's like their version of junk food. If they eat too much of it, the effects can be quite serious." As she was speaking, Yuko walked into the kitchen and knelt next to the fox, placing her hand under his chin and turning his head towards her. Mokona hopped off her shoulder and onto the table as she studied the fox. "Yes, he's already had too much."

"What? What's wrong?" Watanuki asked, taking a step closer.

"Look. The markings on his face have begun to disappear." Watanuki looked and saw that out of the seven markings on the pipe fox's forehead, two were missing: the far right marking and the middle left marking.

"And what happens if they all vanish like that?" Watanuki asked, not understanding why Yuko might be concerned about this.

"His power will fade and he'll never return to normal." Yuko said flippantly. Watanuki's eyes widened in horror at the realization that if the pipe fox lost his power, he'd be huge forever and would never stop giving her trouble!

"You mean…he'll stay this size?!"

"That's right. And you'll be carrying him around forever." Yuko sounded smug, like she'd want to see her little slave have to deal with the big version of the pipe fox her whole life.

"FOREVER?! Is there anything I can do to make him normal again?! Anything! Please tell me there is! Whatever it is, I'll do it!" Watanuki freaked out, waving her hands in the air as she panicked and talked at the speed of light.

"Restoring a pipe fox to its original size is a difficult procedure." Yuko mused, cupping her chin with her pointer finger and thumb. "To be effective, the process requires a huge amount of pure energy."

"Well, alright. Can't we just go to Doumeki's? He lives in a temple doesn't he? That's got to count for something. Even Ame-Warishi said he was pure…even though I don't like having to call on that ass again." The girl grumbled. But if she had to choose between a huge pipe fox and imposing herself upon Doumeki, she'd pick Doumeki, that's how grim the situation was.

"Yes, the energy that Doumeki possesses is exceedingly rare, but this is likely beyond him." Watanuki shoulders dropped in disappointment. "The sheer volume of energy he'd need to release…I'm guessing he'd pass out long before the job was actually completed."

"Ug." Watanuki's shoulders dropped even more.

"It's your choice." Yuko's hand came up to her mouth teasingly. "We can certainly ask him to give it a shot." The witch knew that Watanuki's hated relying on Doumeki no matter the circumstance so this was extremely funny to begin with and she just made it more fun by poking at the girl's ego.

"Nu uh! Let's not!" Watanuki shook her head sharply. "I owe him too much already without adding this on too." She frowned and rolled her eyes, trying not to think of how much she really owed Doumeki.

"Alright then, we'll just have to think of something else." Yuko concluded. "Hmm. Where else could we find a place with enough energy to transfigure a pipe fox?"

"Hey! Yuko!" Mokona called, waving its little paws. The witch smiled at her companion and picked up the fur ball, following its pointing little paws out of the kitchen, through several halls until it led the pair into the storehouse, the pipe fox following behind. Mokona leapt out of Yuko's hands once she'd reached a dark corner of the warehouse and landed on a white vase with blue butterflies, clouds and flowers detailed on it.

"There's an idea! This will serve out needs perfectly!" Yuko smiled. Mokona hummed in triumph. Yuko turned to Watanuki. "Plus…it may help us kill two birds with one stone."

"Huh?" Both Watanuki and the pipe fox cocked their heads in confusion.

"Mokona, you're perfect. Good thinking!" Yuko picked up the fur ball and started rubbing her face against it.

"Mokona helped!" It crooned. The pipe fox started imitating Yuko by rubbing his head against Watanuki, and the girl just folded her arms and watched Yuko being really weird with Mokona.

"Now let's get this plan started!" Yuko shouted.

Yuko called for Maru and Moro to bring her a tall end table that she had in one of the many rooms of the shop and Yuko herself picked up the vase to carry it out into the yard. The twins came running with the table and Yuko placed the vase on it and had them move the whole thing out into the yard. She stood on the porch and watched as they moved the table, holding Mokona in her hands again.

"Good. Now set it down there." She instructed.

"Okay!" The twin chorused, setting down the table and walking away from it.

"Yuko, we brought the water from the well, just like you asked." Watanuki walked up from behind the shop with the pipe fox (who was balancing a basin of water on his head perfectly as he walked). The witch walked up to the vase.

"Excellent. Thank you." She peered into the vase, making sure everything was ready.

"So…what are you going to do with it?" Watanuki asked.

"We're going to use it." The woman said it like a "duh!" statement.

"What's with the vase?" The seer asked.

"It's quite unique. I took it from its previous location at the request of a client."

"From where?" Watanuki asked, suspicious of Yuko's motives for having the vase.

"Oh, I just borrowed it for a bit." She paused, looking up at the moon. "It's from a shrine."

"YEAH RIGHT! You stole it from them, didn't you?!" Watanuki pointed and accusing finger at her boss.

"I left them proper compensation for it, right?" Yuko asked Mokona.

"Right!" The pork bun agreed.

"That's really sneaky! Even for you!" Watanuki waved her hand back and forth and refuse to look at the thief.

"Let's just forget about my little transgression. We have work to do. Quickly now! Put the water from the well into the vase." Watanuki slunk to the vase.

"So what's so special about this vase?" She asked, looking at the daffodil design again.

"Hurry up please. We're running out of time." Watanuki looked up at Yuko who was looking up at the full moon and then looked up at the full moon herself, still confused.

"Okay, I'll get the water. Just give me a second." The girl fetched the water from the pipe fox's head and poured it into the vase. Next, Yuko took out some crystals and dropped a handful into the water. The crystals plinked and pluked into the vase one by one until her hand was empty.

"What's that you're putting in?" Watanuki asked.

"They're crystals. I'm adding them in to purify the well water. Now, if you're ready, come here and look into the vase."

"Oh, okay." Watanuki looked into the vase, seeing the crystals sparkle and noticing that the full moon was directly in the center of its reflection in the vase. The pipe fox did the same, the girl and beast standing opposite of each other as they gazed into the water. Nothing happened for a moment, and then suddenly, the water lit up, sparkling off the crystals and bathing the girl in white light. The water's surface seemed to be growing larger with each passing second, the moon expanding until it completely filled Watanuki's vision. Suddenly, Watanuki felt herself falling and screamed. A huge plunk sounded in the vase and a jet of water rose out of it and flew into the air. The girl and the fox were no longer standing outside the vase.

"Success!" Yuko clapped her hands while Mokona laughed. "Well, Watanuki is going to be busy for a while, we may as well eat. What do you think?" She asked Mokona.

"I think its time to chow!" Mokona replied, its little body shaking with excitement.

"I agree completely." Yuko walked away from the vase and let what would happen, happen.

Inside the vase, Watanuki and the pipe fox were falling down through a world of white water and shining crystals. She could hear Yuko's cry of delight and growled, "YUKO!" with her mouth full of water, flipping herself around in her fall and swimming towards whatever up had become. The pipe fox wasn't far behind her and after a few moments of swimming, they burst out of a small pond. Watanuki was on her hands and knees, coughing up water and nearly retching.

"What did you do, Yuko?!" Watanuki panted. "Are you trying to drown us?" The girl looked behind her, expecting to see the shop and got a surprise when a huge daffodil rose up behind her instead. And when she said huge, she meant huge. The flower was several meters tall and standing in by several ponds, yellow and green grasses sprouting up around the water as well. Butterflies flitted in the air and all Watanuki could see in the distance were more trees and grass and ponds.

"Oh, geez…where are we?" The girl was dumbstruck, her mouth speaking without her really knowing it. The pipe fox shook out his fur, dislodging all the water trapped in his coat. Watanuki had a several minute break down as she tried to figure out where the hell they were, running up and down a little stream (which dried her out from her little swim somewhat) screaming like a mad woman before she finally calmed down. Sitting next to the pipe fox on the bank of the pond that they'd popped out of, Watanuki stared at the daffodils as she tried to muddle things out. "How did we end up in this place? I've never seen anything like this before. It figures that Yuko would send us someplace strange. The vase just sucked us in. I guess if this is what's at the bottom of it I can see why it's so unique."

A breeze picked up, ruffling the girl's pony tail and the pipe fox's fur, sending the flowers around them into an impromptu dance as they waved back and forth.

"Well, the breeze feels nice and these daffodils smell wonderful. I don't know where we ended up, but at least the environment is nice, you know?" She said to the fox, looking at her companion sitting quietly next to her. A moment later and he was glowing with a strange golden light that grew brighter with each passing second until the girl couldn't see anything. And then, an instant later, the light popped and vanished, fading away to reveal a little pipe fox floating in the air, looking at her. She gaped. "You're back to normal size!" She exclaimed. The pipe fox leaned forward and sweetly kissed the girl's nose in response. And suddenly it all clicked.

"That must be why we're here. This must be the place that Yuko was talking about…pure energy…or whatever. "Watanuki folded her arms as the pipe fox took his usual perch, wrapping himself around her neck. The pipe fox kissed her cheek this time and squeezed her a little tighter. "We did what we were sent here to do…" Watanuki trailed off for a second, before having a full blown panic attack. "But how the HELL are we EVER supposed to get OUT of HERE?!" She screamed, her voice echoing back at her with the same amount of angst and worry.

Giggles sounded from behind the girl, echoing after her scream.

"It's a child!" One voice said.

"It's a child!" Another repeated.

"And a loud one too!"

"She certainly is!" Watanuki glanced around looking for the voices, but she couldn't see anybody.

"She hasn't even noticed us yet."

"Not the brightest girl, is she?" One voice commented.

"Not at all." Another agreed. Watanuki's eyebrows scrunched up in confusion and then she leaned down towards the daffodils, thinking to herself that it was silly, thinking that she thought the flowers were talking like some Alice in Wonderland bullshit. She stared at the daffodil and cocked an eyebrow.

"Really? The flowers?" She asked, poking one with her finger. Instantly the flower grew to an enormous size, the surprise throwing the girl back in shock.

"AHHHH!" She screamed.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" The flower yelled, looming over the girl as she fell back on her butt. The flower shrunk again and swiveled towards her companions.

"How rude." They all said at once, turning towards each other. "Very."

"T-t-the flowers?!" Watanuki stuttered. "They talk!" The flowers turned towards her, their petals held in such a way that they seemed to be mocking the girl. Trying to save face, Watanuki's mouth ran away with her. "Well, it'll take more than that to scare me off!" She laughed to emphasize her point.

"Are you sure? You looked pretty frightened to us." The flowers pointed out. Watanuki scrambled over to the three daffodils on her hands and knees.

"Well, that's only because you suddenly decided to grow ten feet tall!" Watanuki pouted, leaning into the flowers…faces. They laughed at her, mocking the girl's bravado. Watanuki took another look around the strange place. "Where are we anyway? Can any of you tell me how to get back to where I came from?"

"You can go back when your business here is finished." They replied.

"When it's finished." One of them repeated.

"But it is finished," Watanuki argued, sitting back on her heels and pointing to the pipe fox. "This guy is back to travel size again. The flowers started dancing, waving their petals and leaves back and forth as they giggled.

"But you're not done yet!"

"There's more."

"Go finish what you started." Suddenly, nine of the daffodils grew to their full size, looming over Watanuki menacingly and started waving their heads again.

"HURRY UP! GO NOW!" They shouted in one voice, freaking out Watanuki as she scrambled to her feet and started running away screaming. This display disproved her claim to not being easily scared off, but she really didn't give a shit when flowers were lecturing her.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE?!" She screamed, running full tilt in the opposite direction of the flowers. They just watched her go, shrinking back to their normal size when the girl had disappeared.

Watanuki kept running for a very long time, distancing herself from the daffodil field as much as possible.. When the seer finally stopped running, she leaned over on her knees to catch her breath, panting heavily.

"Alright!" She admitted, gasping for air. "I was scared by a bunch of daffodils! But you have to admit that one doesn't usually expect flowers to talk! Or to grow at will for that matter!" Watanuki finally calmed down enough to take a look around where she was. She was standing in a small clearing in the midst of the forest she'd run into, the trees a little gnarled but they all still had their leaves so they weren't too scary. After growing daffodils she didn't know what to expect, dancing trees maybe? The sun had disappeared somehow, even though she'd been running, maybe, ten or fifteen minutes and now it looked like evening had fallen, bringing with it a deep purple dusk. "The scenery seems to have changed somehow," she commented to the pipe fox. "What's going on?"

Watanuki looked up, seeing the moon enclosed by the ring of trees in the clearing. So was it really night like back at the shop? Or what this some sort of supernatural phenomenon? The pipe fox unwound itself from the seer's neck a little bit, twisting around so he could see Watanuki's face.

"The flowers said I had something else to take care of…but you've already gone back to your normal size." Watanuki reached out and scratched the creature's neck with her pointer finger. The pipe fox, to show his appreciation of the scratch, snaked up into Watanuki's sleeve and started rubbing himself all over the girl's body. She twisted and gasped and squirmed, trying to catch the slippery rascal when he skated across her torso. Then he was down by her butt, wriggling under her panties and then out and around back into her shirt and up her back. The girl tried to grab the fox, but he was too quick for her and kept dodging her hands. The only thing that stopped Watanuki from tearing her shirt off to get at him was the appearance of a blue firefly, floating just past her face. The girl forgot all about the fox and put her arms down, watching the little bug drift away. A breeze picked up, blowing the firefly higher into the air, its light disappearing when it passed over the moon. The pipe fox slid out of her shirt collar to see why Watanuki had stopped playing their game, looking at the firefly for a moment before diving into Watanuki's shirt again, taking up his usual place in the spot right between her breasts, poking his head out to watch curiously. Watanuki heard someone playing a flute, the soft notes drifting to her ears from somewhere nearby.

"Where's that music coming from?" She wondered aloud. The seer wandered towards the sound, following the melody of the flute through the forest until she emerged from the bushes to find a beautiful pond. The flute music was coming from there too, the notes drifting from Zashiki-Warishi's lips. The sprite was sitting on an odd-shaped boulder (it looked like a tiny cliff or a rocky tree branch) her sandals dangling over the edge, her fireflies dancing around her slowly. She was even more beautiful than the first time Watanuki had seen her, wearing a pink kimono with tsubaki flowers embroidered on the sleeves and at the end of the robe. She paired her robes with a black and white checked obi, the long fabric extending far past what people normally wore. In her hair she wore a cluster of sakura blossoms with three strands dangling down from the main cluster, mingling with her short, blue hair. Watanuki shifted her weight, breaking a twig underneath her foot. The snap caused the sprite to look up from her flute, taking the instrument away from her lips and looking to see who was watching her. Her brown eyes widened at the sight of Watanuki.

"Its you!" Watanuki called, taking a step forwards. "Zashiki-Warishi!"

The sprite burst into a blush, the sudden heat to her face making a steam cloud that rose above her head. She waved her arms around for a moment before covering her face with her hands. And then she slipped, falling into the water two feet below her. Watanuki ran up to the sprite, her shoes splashing in the pond and then kneeled down next to the other girl, the cool water soaking her shoes, socks and splashing up her legs to lick at the hem of her skirt.

"Are you alright?" Watanuki asked.

"Yes!" Zashiki-Warishi answered breathlessly. Watanuki picked up the sprite's kimono sleeve, feeling the fabric being weighed down by water.

"I'm sorry, you're kimono is soaking wet."

"Oh no! It's fine!" The girl's head shot up, her wet hair clinging to her cheeks. "Why are you on this mountain?" Watanuki looked around again, confused, but all she saw was forest.

"This place…is a mountain?" The seer asked.

"Huh?" Zashiki-Warishi replied.

"Huh?" Watanuki said back. They'd just confused each other…which seemed to be normal at this point considering the mess they'd gotten into last time Watanuki had seen the sprite. Deciding that sitting in the pond soaking wet was not a good idea, Watanuki helped Zashiki-Warishi up and they walked over to a boulder a stone's throw away and sat down to dry off. As the fireflies floated around them, Watanuki explained to the sprite how she got on the supposed mountain by falling through a strange vase.

"You arrived here through something that is called a Kochuuten." Zashiki-Warishi explained.

"A Kochuuten?" Watanuki repeated, the word new to her. "What's that?"

"It's a special kind of vase that acts as a doorway to other worlds." The sprite folded her hands nervously. "If you came here through a field of flowers then that means you must've used the daffodil vase." She paused. "Well…they aren't really daffodils, they're nymphs, but they take the form of flowers in that world." The pipe fox unwound itself from the girl's shirt a little bit and reached up to kiss her cheek a few times.

"I don't completely understand all of this. So are you saying that this mountain that we're on is somehow part of the Kochuuten?" Watanuki asked.

"No, this mountain is the world for which the vase acts as a doorway." The seer turned to lookat the sprite. "This is where we live. A place called Reizan, or Spirit Mountain."

"Oh, I get it!" Watanuki smiled, and then it dropped off her face when another question popped up. "But how did I end up in that field after I fell through the vase?"

"The field was a part of the vase, but its energy is strong enough that it links to other places with similar energy, roads made from the energy itself. Daffodils bloom on this mountain so it's easy for the vase to lead someone here."

"Oh." Watanuki mostly got it now, and another piece of information just clicked into place. Yuko probably had wanted to send her here for some reason, reverting the pipe fox and to probably meet Zashiki-Warishi. So is that what Yuko meant by killing two birds with one stone?

"I'm so sorry about last time." Zashiki-Warishi grabbed the girl attention again. "It was a mistake and I feel terrible." The sprite blushed. Watanuki recalled that she had stolen Doumeki's soul and the ohagi that he'd eaten, putting Doumeki's life in danger so Watanuki had to get it back for him. As it turns out, Zashiki-Warishi had meant for the ohagi to be for Watanuki in the first place, messing up the meaning of the Obon festival. And that's when Watanuki found out that the sprite had a (possible) crush on her. Which was odd, but nice anyway. "I really hope that he recovered." The sprite said, referring to Doumeki.

"Don't worry about him, he's doing just fine." Watanuki smiled. Yeah, fine enough to tick me off and cause trouble and eat me out of house and home!

"Oh, that's good!" The sprite clapped her hands together softly, like she was praying. "I was worried this whole time, and I was thoroughly scolded for it." She blushed even redder.

"By Ame-Warishi? You two seem to get along well."

"Yes, even though I always seem to be causing her trouble." The girl's hands came down and folded lightly in her lap again. Her head shot up again after a moment of silence. "Why are you here? Is there something I can help you with?"

"Um…well…" Watanuki didn't know how to say that she'd already done what she came here to do…reverting the pipe fox and all…but the sprite seemed so eager to help her that she hated letting her down…

"Anything at all. I'd really like to help you…if I can." Zahiki-Warishi nervously weaved her fingers together. Then Watanuki remember the other thing she needed to do and quickly pulled out the package she'd purchased earlier that day, taking it out of the little plastic bag she'd been keeping it in.

"Here." She held out the packet to the sprite. The girl looked surprised, staring at the gift like she didn't know what to do with it. "Well…umm…you were the one who gave me that fried tofu earlier…right?" Watanuki blushed, turning away to hide her embarrassment by gently poking the pipe fox's nose.

"I…um…I heard that it was the pipe fox's favorite." The sprite replied. "B-but it seems like I caused you a lot of trouble." She looked down, seeming discouraged.

"No, you helped me." Watanuki blushed again. "So I just wanted to give you something to say thank you…so here." She held out the gift again. "Please, take it." Zashiki-Warishi's face did that thing again – the one where her face turned so red, so fast, that a steam cloud poofed out of nowhere and threw up her hair comically. "It got a little wet on the way here, but it was in a plastic bag so it should be alright."

"For me?" The sprite whispered, taking the white packet in both her hands and holding it up. "You got me a present?"

"Mmm hmm." Watanuki smiled wider, and then had to act all embarrassed and explained herself. "Dup-da, but I don't know what you like so I was just guessing." She scratched her cheek nervously. "I didn't know when I was going to see you again, so I couldn't cook anything." Zashiki-Warishi pulled off the red ribbon and unwrapped the white paper, looking at the wing clips nestled inside with an open mouth.

"Like I said…I wasn't too sure." Watanuki looked away, placing her hand behind her head in embarrassment. "So if you don't like it that's okay!" She chuckled awkwardly.

"I love it!" Zashiki-Warishi held the clips to her chest, thanking her new friend.

"Good, I'm glad." Watanuki sighed in relief. She wasn't really good with girly things. The two girls looked at each other for a moment, wet and nervous and embarrassed on both their parts. But they were both smiling and Zashiki-Warishi's eyes held grateful tears that shined in the moonlight beautifully. The moment lasted for only a short time though, being thoroughly interrupted by five, very loud, very angry voices.

"YOOOOOUUUUU!" Watanuki flinched looking all around for the voices and then looked up, spotting the Karasu Tengu floating above her head on their surf boards, fans out and ready to attack.

"You made her cry again!" The leader with the sunglasses yelled.

Watanuki looked at Zashiki-Warishi for help but the sprite was just as shocked as she was. The Tengu started making their dive, headed straight for the flailing girl.

"You're not going to get away with it this time!" Sunglasses yelled.

"We're going to get you!" Another said. Watanuki screamed as they came closer and closer.

"No! No! Nononono!"

"No! You're wrong!" Zashiki-Warishi stepped in front of the cowering girl, holding up the hair clips. "She just came to bring me this and that's all!"

"ATTACK!" The Tengu yelled and then skidded to a halt in front of the sprite, not watching to hit her and crashed into each other. Zashiki-Warishi took the moment to grab Watanuki's hand and started running towards the forest.

"This way!" She called, pulling on the girl's arms.

"Hey, look!" One of the Tengu yelled, pointing as the five of them struggled to untangle themselves.

"She's running away!"

"Worse than that! The jerk's trying to take her too!"

"CHARGE!" The five dwarves untangled themselves, bursting apart and flying after the pair.

Watanuki and Zashiki-Warishi dashed through the forest, the sprite's wooden sandals clumping heavily on the ground. The trees whipped past them in blurs of purple, both girls breathing hard in the quiet. Then, Zashiki-Warishi's sandal flew off her foot, the sprite falling to the ground and letting go of Watanuki's hand to scamper back to grab her shoe.

"Are you okay?" Watanuki asked, breathless.

"Come on!" Zashiki-Warishi took off her other sandal and started running, but not the same direction they'd been going in, but down a path on their left. The Tengu flew past where they'd turned off, overshooting their target and they can to turn around to follow, cackling evilly and yelling threats the entire time.

The girl's were holding hands again, running as fast as they could in the light of the moon, but no matter how fast they moved, the Tengu were still closing in, fans at the ready to pummel the offender and save the victim.

"There she is!" One called.

"We've got her!" Another cheered.

"Let's attack now!"

"They won't give up!" Watanuki started looking around for a way to escape the Tengu, her eyes scanning the forest as she panted heavily. "How long do they plan to chase us?!" Zashiki-Warishi said nothing, just looking at Watanuki and smiling, her blush dusting her cheeks. She wished this moment could go on forever, just holding Watanuki's hand as they ran was enough for her to be happy. After a few minutes of running, Watanuki could feel Zashiki-Warishi slowing down and stopped running to check on her.

"Are you okay?" Watanuki asked, turning to look at the sprite. Zashiki-Warishi shook her head.

"It's my wrist." She said. Watanuki looked down to where their hands were and started, quickly letting go of her grip.

"I'm sorry! Did I hurt you?" The sprite placed her other hand on her wrist and was about to answer, but they were interrupted. The Tengu spiraled down from the tree tops, still laughing the threatening.

"We've got you!" They cried triumphantly, dive bombing, their fans held up to smack the shit out of Watanuki. The seer threw her arms around her head, hoping to at least protect herself a little bit.

"Please stop!" Zashiki-Warishi cried, trying one last time to get the Tengu to see reason. They were three feet away, then two…then one. Right before they hit Watanuki, another voice shouted above the war cries.

"You idiots!" The Tengu stopped, hovering mid air. Watanuki's knees when boneless, relieved that she'd escaped the beating. And then she looked up to see who saved her.

"Ame-Warishi?" The Tengu and Zashiki-Warishi were also looking up, watching Ame-Warishi drift slowly down on the cool, evening air. She was still in a black Lolli dress, her parasol resting against her shoulders and her skirt fluttering around her legs as she descended.

The rain sprite was almost to the ground when her parasol caught on a tree branch and the girl flailed around try to keep her balance before falling to the ground in an undignified manner. She sprung to her feet, huffing as she closed her umbrella and rolled it tight. "You've gone too far! What were you thinking?!" The wrathful sprite swung her umbrella like a sword and pointed it straight at the Tengu. "Do you think its fine to ignore her and do whatever you want?!"

"But that guy over there made her sad again!" The Tengu all pointed to Watanuki as their leader spoke, hovering a few feet above the ground.

"Yeah, sad!" Another agreed.

"Yeah! We saw that jerk make her cry!" Another protested.

"You're wrong. I was crying because I was happy." Zashiki-Warishi explained. "See?" The sprite held out her new hair clips. Ame-Warishi walked over, leaning in close as she hummed over the hair accessories.

"What is that?" She asked, looking at the seer.

"It's just a present. For her." The girl said. The pipe fox on her neck peeked over at the rain sprite, watching her with interest.

"Mmhmm." The sprite was looking at the clips again. "It's cheap!" She tsked. Watanuki grumbled at her discerning eye and lack of finesse. It's not like she'd really gone out of her way to get inexpensive clips, those were just the ones she'd thought Zashiki-Warishi would like. Ame-Warishi picked up the package and opened it, rustling the plastic as she took the pins out. The sprite then reached over to pull back her friend's hair and slid the clips in; nodding in approval once she was done. "But I guess that's alright." Zashiki-Warish blushed, smiling with her friend.

Now that Watanuki had come to do what she'd been sent to do, it was time to go back to Yuko's shop. The two sprites and the Tengu walked back with her to the pond and the girl scrambled up the rock Zashiki-Warishi had been sitting on when they'd first run into each other, the protective sprite following her up to say goodbye. Ame-Warishi and the Tengu hung back, watching the couple carefully for their own personal reasons. Watanuki looked down into the pond, watching the ripples for a moment before turning back to her friend.

"You should be able to get home from here." Zashiki-Warishi explained.

"Hmm." The girl replied, warily watching the water. The last time she'd been sucked in she'd ended up in a place where daffodils wanted to scare the living daylights out of her. She didn't even know if she was going to be able to get back this way. But she trusted Zashiki-Warishi and smiled back, displaying confidence she didn't feel.

"You take care of yourself." The sprite wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Thanks for all your help." Watanuki said.

"Thank you too." She replied, her hand drifting up to touch her hair clips.

"See you around?" The seer asked.

"Yeah." The sprite nodded, tears welling in her eyes again. Watanuki instantly looked up, seeing the Tengu charging her again with an even hotter vengeance as they yelled at her.

"Oh no! Not again!" Watanuki quickly turned around the took a deep breath, pinching her nose shut and leaping into the pond. She fell down into the pond, the water soaking her as she swam for the surface. Then that weird thing happened were everything flipped and her body was being pulled down before being allowed to swim upwards again, the pipe fox slinking after her. The girl broke the surface before she could suffocate, throwing her hands over the side of Yuko's well before she even knew where she was. The girl was freezing again and wet and she'd just popped out of a well. She struggled to pull herself over the side, wiggling and kicking her legs until she landed face first on the ground with a thump.

"Ah! Welcome home!~" Yuko called, walking around the corner.

"Welcome home!" Mokona repeated from the witch's shoulder.

"You look like a drowned rat, Watanuki." Yuko commented, leaning over to look at the girl.

"What kind of homecoming is that!?" The girl shrieked, shooting to her feet and waving her arms in Yuko's face.

"We put well water in the vase so you'd come back through here." The witch walked over to the well, looking in. "It's a good thing you know how to swim, isn't it?" The pipe fox snaked out of the girl's shirt, popping up from in between her boobs and greeted Yuko with a squeak.

"Hello, you." She cooed, petting the tiny fox. "So…? You find her?" Yuko said, her voice teasing.

"Uh…yeah." Watanuki blushed, scratching her head and avoiding eye contact.

"Well," Mokona leapt into Yuko's hands as she spoke. "I'm glad it worked out." The two of them walked away, leaving the girl looking after them. Watanuki thought about the night's adventure, turning her head towards the well as she reminisced before looking up at the moon. It had been fun for the most part with only a few snags like the daffodils and Tengu. As the girl thought, a single, blue firefly flew past her, going higher and higher in the sky until its light was eclipsed by the moon's.

"Aright then," The girl started making her way back into the shop. "It's time to get back to my soup. And a bath. I'm soaking wet." Watanuki did end up taking a bath and finishing the soup, pleased to finally be warm again. She sat down at the table when she was done cooking, bowl at the ready for enjoying, steam rising from its surface. "And since I can't give the pipe fox any more of my fried tofu, I might as well enjoy it!" The girl picked up a piece of tofu with her chop sticks and almost had it in her mouth when the pipe fox leapt up in a graceful arc and snagged the piece right off her utensils. The girl watched in mute disbelief as the pipe fox gobbled down his piece and squeaked at her.

"You're lucky you're cute." Watanuki shot back, guarding her soup like her life depended on it so she'd get to be able to enjoy some fried tofu too.

The next day, Watanuki found a small package in her locker at school, wrapped in a blue ribbon that matched her eyes. The girl looked at the package and then glanced around, trying to see if anyone was watching her, trying to pick out who'd left it. A secret admirer? She picked up the package. It looked like the one she'd given Zashiki-Warishi – a simple white packet tied up with ribbon – and when the girl opened it, inside lay two hair clips from the same shop she'd visited yesterday. They were white and yellow flowers, tsubaki if she was remembering correctly (1). Watanuki smiled at the girl, wondering who could've given them too her. She hoped it was Wari, but the boy never really gave gifts to anyone so it probably wasn't him. But…could it be him? She could hope at least.

"Oi." A voice said behind the girl. She instantly prickled at the sound, snappig her head around to glare at Doumeki.

"That's not my name, dumbass." She hissed.

"What's that?" The archer pointed to the hair clips in the girl's hand.

"None of your business!" Watanuki retorted, trying to cover the clips up before he got any wrong ideas. But Doumeki was too fast for her and reached around her other side and snagged the clips. "Hey!" She yelped, reaching for them. Doumeki took the pins out of their packaging and reached for Watanuki's bangs, pinning the ones close to her ear back with both pins so quickly that Watanuki didn't even have time to pull away.

"There." Doumeki said. Watanuki looked at her classmate and she swore that he was smiling, even with his mouth in the same straight line it always was. Her hand drifted up to touch the pins lightly, blushing at the archer's attention. She turned around so he couldn't see her red face.

"Do they look good? I'm not really into girly stuff."

"Yes. They look good." He replied. Heat blossomed in Watanuki's chest, making her feel all warm inside and deepening her blush. The moment stretched on in perfect silence until Doumei spoke again. "We'll be late for class."

"Way to ruin the moment." Watanuki sighed, the good feeling she had evaporating at the reminder of school.

"Whatever. Let's go." Doumeki started walking to class and Watanuki walked behind him, ranting about his rudeness and lack of atmosphere reading. He however, was just too pleased that she hadn't taken out his clips yet, a very, very, very small smile touching his face when Watanuki wasn't looking.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

Two steaming cups of coffee rested on the table, both untouched. The grandfather clock in of the corners of the octagonal tower ticked away, marking the passage of time with each swing of its pendulum. The woman was sitting on one side of the table and the witch sat on the other. The woman had her hands on her knees, fisting her fingers into the fabric of her maroon skirt, her hair falling in front of her face as she leaned forward. The witch was draped in a floor-length green and purple dress, the skirt divided into three layers of purple fabric with a slit up one side. She had her arms folded, her long, black hair let loose. The girl stood behind the witch, holding a serving tray to her chest as she watched, her winter uniform collar itching her neck.

The seconds passed, each tick of the clock echoing in the tower room as Yuko watched her customer. The lady fiddled with the sleeve of her yellow sweater, not meeting Yuko's eyes for several minutes. And then she looked up, her brown hair falling away from her face as she reached out for her tea cup.

"It seems to me that you have a choice." Yuko said suddenly. The woman's hand hesitated, hovering just over her tea cup. She gasped, her wide eyes looking at Yuko's. "You can hold back…or you can go ahead and do it. Do it because nothing can be done and there's nothing to lose." The witch placed her chin on her back of her hand, tipping her head to the side seductively as she planted her elbow on the table. "Go ahead and try it…no one's going to stop you."

"Aw! Come on!" What the hell is going on?!" Watanuki grumbled, standing in front of a wall of lockers. She'd been waiting on a customer with Yuko when the witch sent her out on an errand. First she had to trudge down to the subway station, and then she had to stand in the humid tunnel to wait for her train, sweating through her gray uniform jacket and then when the train finally rolled up, she stepped into the air conditioned bliss of the car, and got shoved into a corner by two people's butts, a backpack and a briefcase until she was so squished she almost couldn't breathe. Almost. But thankfully, she had to switch lines after three stops and shoved her way through businessmen returning from work, housewives going shopping and students who were going home after their cram school classes until she shot out onto the platform with a satisfying pop and the train's doors shut behind her. Then she was back in the humid, sweating tunnel and then back on the air conditioned train and then out into the station and finally she trudged up the stairs into the crisp fall air. Watanuki looked around, searching for the locker that Yuko had told her to find. She spotted the wall off lockers and briskly walked over to where they were, and inserted and turned the key that Yuko had given her for the locker. She opened the locker and expected to find something important inside, but all she saw was a piece of paper, folded up nicely. Watanuki's eyebrow raised in suspicion as she reached in the locker and picked up the paper. She unfolded the note, just waiting for one of Yuko's childish pranks but it was just an ordinary piece of paper. The witch had left her a note.

Fashion glasses – Yuko

That's all it said. Watanuki stared at the note, her eyes shadowed by the glow of the setting sun, her lenses burning orange. She stared in silence, her eyebrows scrunching in quiet fury as her hand trembled, pinching the note in a death grip. The beep of people's subway passes echoed around her, the automatic doors creaking open and shut behind her. She could feel it rising from her toes, the tingle traveling up her legs, shaking her knees, pooling in her stomach before she finally let out her anger at being dicked around in one brilliant yell, her shout quieting all the taking and walking around her for a moment before she slammed the locker door shut, ignored all the stares she was getting and stomped away.

"She sent me all the way out here to get a hand-written note out of a locker just to tell me to buy a pair of cheap, plastic glasses?!" Watanuki hissed as she turned the corner and stomped across the crosswalk, getting a lot of weird stares from other people while she was at it (not that she really cared at the moment, she was too busy being pissed off). "If she wanted glasses why didn't she say something while I was at the shop yesterday instead of giving me a key and ordering me to take a trip to the boondocks?!" Watanuki recalled Maru and Moro dancing around in the receiving room while Yuko lounged on her couch and handed the girl the locker key. She nearly spat at the memory she was so mad. "This sucks! And is she going to wear these glasses? Or even worse! Is she going to make me wear them?!" The girl's voice dripped with venom and sarcasm, the sheer power of her bad mood pushing people away from her like a bad smell. "She'd better not! I'd look stupid in two pairs of glasses!" The girl shouted, still not caring that everyone around her thought she was crazy. The girl sighed, her tantrum finally running itself out and she slumped over in defeat. Yuko knew exactly how to get her mad and this time she succeeded.

Watanuki looked up and spotted a bright pink 100 yen shop and decided that it wouldn't be bad to look for something cheap for Yuko's pair of glasses. And luckily enough, there was a bin of glasses sitting right out front. The girl's eyes lit up. "I've hit the jackpot!" She clapped her hands together in delight and smiled, and started digging. "Now let's see…I wonder if I can find a pair that doesn't look too cheap for only one hundred yes. Yellow…pink…purple…blue…aha!" Buried in the bottom of the bin was a pair of red glasses that caught the seer's attention. "Red!" The girl's had reached out and snagged the glasses, and she ran inside to pay for them.

"Thank you! Have a nice day!" The cashier called to the girl as she left the shop holding her little bag.

"Well, that's all finished…so I guess I should be getting back." Watanuki fished out the glasses from her bag and looked at them, wondering what the hell Yuko could want with them. The girl shrugged and wedged her finger in between the lens rims and the earpieces of the glasses and twirled it around her fingers, waiting for the crosswalk light to change so she could head back to the subway station. She stared across the street and noticed a brunette woman in a red blazer and skirt combination standing directly across from her.

Watanuki continued to twirl the glasses around her finger, just waiting for the light to change until she noticed a glint on that woman's shoulder, right over where her purse strap was. The glint traveled across her shoulder and disappeared behind her neck, intriguing the seer. She watched for the glint again, but it didn't come. The light was going to turn soon, so maybe if she got close enough, she could see if there was something strange on the woman's back. Watanuki kept watching, listening to the engines of the cars get louder and louder until they passed her and faded away. A particularly noisy motorcycle was approaching at the point, the higher pitched engine blaring in Watanuki's ears as it got closer and closer in the lane furthest away from her. The light turned yellow in the something strange happened. The woman in the red suit who had just been standing there suddenly tipped over and fell into the street, her hair streaming out behind her as she clutched her purse. Watanuki's face slackened, her chin dropping as she watched the woman fall. The motorcycle's brakes squealed as the driver tried to stop before he hit the woman, but he was too late in braking and the resounding thunk from the crash hallowed out Watanuki's stomach as she dashed out into the street, the cars around her in a standstill from the red light. The woman was unconscious, her body strewn across the pavement. People were crowding around her before Watanuki could get too close, shouting and yelling at the accident while the driver of the motorcycle panicked over what had happened, standing next to his bike and hovering over the unconscious woman. Watanuki hesitated for a split second, wanting to check on the woman's condition, but instead ran to the nearest phone and called an ambulance before running back to the woman. Long minutes passed and a few good people helped Watanuki get her off her road so traffic could pass and waited for the ambulance.

The woman didn't seem to be hurt too much, some cuts marred her skin, her head had a bump on it and her wrist was swollen and it might be broken, but Watanuki couldn't tell. A police car drove up as Watanuki was waiting with the woman and the officer started asking questions about the accident to the motorcycle driver and some of the people who had lingered around to watch the drama. Watanuki calmly answered her questions and then sat next to the woman who'd been hit by the motorcyclist, her head resting on the girl's knees, her uninjured hand held tightly in Watanuki's. The woman was still unconscious when the ambulance came wailing up the street, but she started to wake up when the paramedics were moving her stretcher into the ambulance. She stayed mostly conscious as the ambulance bumped along the road and Watanuki held her hand for as long as she could, only letting go when the paramedics had to do something or get around her. Once they were at the hospital, Watanuki was left in the waiting room while the woman was rushed off to see a doctor. She sat for a little while and watched as hospital staff went about their duties and observed patient's families coming in and out for visits. The hospital's visiting hours ended while she was sitting there and Watanuki had to go home, having heard only that the woman hadn't been hurt too badly. Watanuki had called Yuko earlier to tell her she wasn't coming in to work that afternoon, and so the girl just went straight home after leaving the hospital.

She couldn't really sleep all night long, tossing the turning restlessly, concerned about the accident and the woman and how she was doing. Finally, Watanuki made the decision to go visit her in the morning and nothing would stop her. The girl nodded to herself, resolute in her decision and dozed off into a light sleep around two in the morning, her mind and worries finally letting her body rest. Early the next day, Watanuki called Yuko again to tell her she'd be in by late morning instead of earlier like she'd been told and took the train out to the hospital where the woman was. She got into the hospital but the woman she was looking for wasn't ready for visitors.

Feeling useless, the girl stepped outside after thirty minutes of waiting and walked a few blocks away from the hospital. The crisp autumn air surged through her lungs, causing a slight shiver and wasn't too distracting from the girl's current task of keeping herself occupied for a short time. Several gusts of wind tried to flip up her skirt, but the girl held down her pleats, one hand glued to her skirt and the other pushing her hair back from her face in the brisk air. She walked for a little while, enjoying the afternoon and getting all her nervous, frazzled wiggles out of her legs she'd had since getting into the ambulance. After a few minutes, the girl was smiling a little bit and she'd just gotten great idea from passing a little flower shop on the corner. Watanuki's smiled widened and she made a little pit stop before heading back to the hospital.

Watanuki sat in the waiting room for ten more minutes before a nurse came and told her that the woman she'd accompanied to the hospital was in her room and could have visitors if she was ready. Watanuki thanked the nurse and let herself be directed to the woman's recovery room before being left alone at the door. Watanuki lifted her hand up to know when she heard someone speak inside the room.

"I did it again…"Watanuki's hand froze, turned around to rap her knuckles on the door, and waited and inch from the door. She listened for the woman to say anything else, but she didn't and so the girl knocked softly. "Come in," she heard, a little louder than the previous sentence the woman had said. Watanuki put on a cheerful smile and turned the door knob. She poked her head in and laughed – one part cheerful and one part nervous. The woman's eyes widened in surprise (she obviously wasn't expecting visitors, let alone a girl she didn't know, but Watanuki walked into the room anyway, holding the boquet of flowers in both hands. She stopped near the bed, blushing shyly at the woman.

"Uh…hi! My name is Watanuki." She introduced herself awkwardly,

"You're the one who called the ambulance." The woman stated, shifting around in her bed. She was wearing standard hospital attire in and orange color, which seemed really weird but Watanuki guessed it worked. "You rode with me."

"Oh no! Please don't get up!" Watanuki failed her arms around a little bit, trying to get the woman to rest and take it easy, but she was sitting up before the seer had finished her sentence.

"Don't worry," The woman smiled softly, her brown eyes warm. She held up her left arm, the bandage stretching from her wrist, up her arm and underneath her sleeve. "It's only a hairline fracture. I'm Nurie by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Nurie. Lucky you were hit by a motorcycle." Watanuki smiled, sighing that her damage wasn't too extensive. She shrugged. "If it were a truck…who knows what would've happened." The image of the woman who lied flashed through Watanuki's head, recalling that she'd been hit by a truck right around the time she'd met Yuko. The girl shook that thought away before it damped her mood. That woman didn't get off so easy with her accident. Watanuki noticed that Nurie was looking at her funny, not replying to her comment and just staring at her with those flat brown eyes. Watanuki blushed nervously again and held up the bouquet she'd purchased. "Ah…get well soon." Watanuki held out the flowers with both of her hands, smiling warmly at the woman. She stared at them for a moment. Watanuki tipped her head to the side slightly in confusion. She couldn't figure out what was the matter. The flowers were pretty, nice, bright reds, yellows and whites. Did she not like flowers? What that the issue? Before Watanuki could ask, the woman grabbed the bouquet harshly with her good arm, pulled it behind her head that threw the bouquet right into Watanuki's with a flurry of petals.

"I see. Well…that's why you took yesterday off." Yuko mused, puffing on her pipe. Watanuki had just finished telling the witch the whole story, and she did it while changing the light bulbs of the chandelier in the octagonal tower. The seer was in the dark room with Yuko, standing on a chair while she just sat and listened and watched with amusement as the girl tried to juggle several big, round light bulbs and desperately trying not to fall off the chair. Yuko was wearing a cheery yellow and orange kimono with while flowers, the exact opposite of the dreary, rainy afternoon they could see out of the windows. Today, she'd just pulled her hair up in a simple bun, letting all three layers of her bangs hand loose to her waist. "And why you managed to be late this morning as well." Yuko let out a cloud of smoke.

"Don't worry. I forgive you." The older woman re-crossed her legs sensually, pulling her maroon wrap around her arms just a little bit tighter.

"There's something very scary about being forgiven by you." Watanuki commented, finally deciding to set down two of the three light bulbs she had in her arms and set them on the table to just work with one. The girl was wearing her usual smoke and handkerchief that she tied around her hair, but she still felt a little cold, even in the extra layers. Watanuki reached up with one hand to steady herself, her fingers wrapping around the light fixture, as she looked down, pausing in her work to look at Yuko as she picked up the red glasses she'd been made to purchase and smiled. "You know that smile is every scarier." Watanuki shivered at the sight. "So what are you planning to use those for exactly?"

"Who knows?" Yuko lilted. "So how is she doing?"

"Huh?" The subject change caught Watanuki off guard.

"You're friend in the hospital." Yuko clarified.

"Why?" Watanuki asked indignantly. "Are you worried about her too?" The girl leaned forward, parallel with the table so that the arm she had holding onto the light fixture was pulled behind her head.

"No, but I get the feeling you are." She said it with her knowing voice. "You said you saw something unusual on her shoulder, right?" Yuko held up the glasses to her eyes without putting them on and Watanuki stared at the witch's eyes through them.

"Yeah, I saw a flash, but it could've just been a metal buckle on the strap of her hand bag."

"Possibly, but you're not entirely sure, are you?" Yuko suddenly zoomed into Watanuki's space, their lips almost touching. "You smell like flowers." The witch teased. Watanuki leaned away from her intense gaze and gasped.

"You see…well…I know this might sound weird but, she grabbed the bouquet I bought her and hit me over the head with it." Watanuki admitted, still bothered by the whole event.

"Did she?" Yuko said, her voice mocking as she sat back in her chair, pipe in hand. "You must've said something very irritating. Which isn't hard, I might add." Watanuki scowled. "Did you tell a bad joke like, 'Did you know? In the history of his hospital that no one has ever come out of it alive?' Or something like that?"

"No, I did not make a stupid joke like that!" Watanuki hissed, putting on her mad face. "I was being perfectly polite! She just hit me out of the blue!"

"Oh, really?" Yuko asked after a moment's pause, puffing another cloud of smoke into the room.

"Oh, yeah." Watanuki said sarcastically. "Like I said: I didn't give her a reason to hit me. And right after she did it, she started apologizing." Watanuki pitched her voice higher, mocking and imitating Nurie as she recounted what had happened. "'Oh, I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!'" The girl dropped the voice. "She seemed really sincere for what it's worth."

Yuko remained silent.

"And when I asked her about it, she said she'd been like this for a really long time now." Watanuki started wiggling around again with the bulbs. "She's always been doing stuff you're not supposed to do, like it there's a button you're not supposed to push, she'll push it or if there's an alarm switch you're not supposed to pull, she'll pull it. It's like a compulsion. Oh! And just listen to this!" Watanuki's voice got more excited as she spoke about Nurie, but since she was trying to unscrew a bulb, it was also knotted over with tension, straining her excitement. "She got sick on purpose so she would've have to take the high school entrance exams even though she knew she'd definitely pass them! And she didn't even write her name on the exam paper for her first-choice university! Naturally, she failed and had to go to her second-choice school."

"What about now?" Yuko asked, listening with calm interest at Watanuki's story and watching with calm interest as Watanuki started doing acrobatics on her table and chair, lifting one leg up for balance and then the other as she tried to unscrew the old bulb from the light fixture.

"It's the day before a very big presentation at work and she's got a very good promotion riding on it. And she keeps insisting that she doesn't want to fail but that's sure as hell the way it looks to me!" Watanuki got the old bulb out and dropped it carefully on the table, and then had to stretch up again to place the new bulb in the empty spot, her spine and arms straining to get up that high. "I don't know. It's like she going out of her way to screw up her own life." Watanuki moved onto the next bulb and the next bulb until all the lights had been changed. During those few minutes, Yuko just sat and contemplated the situation. "Could some kind of spirit be responsible for her behavior? What do yo think?" Watanuki finally asked, stepping down from the chair.

"Maybe…" The witch started, resting her chin on her wrist.

"I knew it!" Watanuki shrieked, throwing her hands on her head.

"Uh, ah. Let's not be too hasty."

"Why not?"

"Well, think about it." Yuko stated.

"Uh…okay?" Watanuki didn't know what she was supposed to think about.

"Can you imagine what it would be like to be someone who can't accept happiness? Well, can you?" Now Watanuki was confused.

"What?" She just stared at Yuko.

"For instance: if you won millions of yen in a lottery…could imagine being unable to turn in the winning ticket and claim your prize money?" Yuko said, swinging her pipe in between her fingers.

"That's crazy!" The girl waved her hand in front of her face. "You paid for the ticket! You're entitled to the money…it's like when people pay you and you grant their wish!" The seer held her hands up in exasperation.

"That's right. You wouldn't have any trouble cashing it in because you'd feel entitled to that happiness."

"Happiness?" Yuko puffed her pipe as Watanuki looked at her, wanting and explanation to her little exercise.

"Exactly." A cloud of smoke came out with the word. "You don't understand her feelings.

"Nurie's?" Watanuki asked. The grandfather clock on the wall gonged, startling the girl. She jumped a little and looked at the time. It was five thirty. Yuko slipped on the red glasses, giving Watanuki one of her "eye" looks. This time her eyes said that she was up to something more serious than plotting to get her little slave to make more food or get her more beer. This was a serious sort of plot.

"Why don't you bring your little friend to the shop tomorrow?" She asked smiling slyly.

"What was that about happiness?" Nurie asked, when Watanuki visited her in the hospital the next morning.

"I'm sorry to have to say something like this…" Watanuki laughed nervously, twisting her fingers into the fabric of her uniform skirt and trying to find the best way to get around to shop thing. It was so weird to have to convince someone to come into the shop. Mostly they just came when fate brought them there. "You might have a problem accepting happiness and success in your life."

"I don't think so…" Nurie started. Watanuki continued on.

"This time it was just a hairline fracture, but who knows what it'll be next time." The girl said, both women looking down at the bandages on Nurie's arm.

"You're right." Nurie held up her arm. "This doesn't look like happiness, does it?" She looked out the window, staring at the windblown trees. "Maybe you're right and I'm one of those people who can't bear to be happy. Maybe I'm some kind of head-case…insane." She smiled creepily.

"I wasn't saying that at all!" Watanuki shouted, denying what the woman was saying, throwing her hands animatedly. "It's possible that this doesn't have anything to do with you! It's not that you're insane…there's just some forces in this world that make people act crazy sometimes! I've seen things you wouldn't believe, trust me."

"Do you mean…like I'm possessed or something?" Nurie asked, looking at the girl with blank eyes. The girl tensed up, trying not to bring spirits into the conversation just yet. Her eyes slid sideways, trying to come up with an out when Nurie panicked a little. "What's wrong? What do you see?"

"Nothing! That's not what I mean!" Watanuki flailed around and then slapped her hands down on the bed, leaning in to try and convince Nurie to come to the shop. "Listen! There's someone I need you to meet!"

And so it happened. Nurie was released from the hospital and went home to change, meeting Watanuki as a bus stop before they rode to Yuko's shop. After the short walk, Watanuki led the woman inside to the octagonal tower where Yuko was in a fairly simple green and purple dress (compared to her other more extravagant outfits). The seer left them alone for a minute to make some coffee and came back with a tray, setting down the cups and them taking her spot behind Yuko, standing with the tray held to her chest as she tried not to fiddle with her skirt and itchy collar. Nurie had her hands on her knees, looking down. She looked uncomfortable and it looked like the two women hadn't said a word to each other even though something must've happened already for this much tension to be in the air. The clocked ticked, the second filling the silence. Nurie carefully reached out to take her tea cup.

"Go ahead and do it, if you really want to." Yuko said, causing Nurie to stop reaching, her hand suspended in midair.

"Um…I-I don't…What are you talking about?" Tick, tock.

"Why, throwing that cup of coffee in my face, of course." Yuko rested her chin on her hand. Watanuki and Nurie both gasped. "This is a shop for granting wishes. The fact that you came here means you have one. Now what could it be, I wonder?" Tick, tock, said the clock. Nurie said nothing. "Come now, no need to be shy. I've heard it all before."

Tick, tock.

"Any kind of wish? Really?" Nurie's face looked hopeful as she asked her question.

"Really. Any kind at all." The clock ticked away, the birds outside sang, but the silence in the tower room stretch on for an endless moment.

"I want to over come…" Nurie started.

"Overcome what?" Yuko asked.

"To overcome…the urge to do things I'm not supposed to." Yuko chuckled a little, sitting up straight in her chair.

"Let me ask you something: say you bought a lottery ticket and you won the grand prize jackpot…would you go cash it in?"

"The grand prize?"

"Would you cash it in?" The witch asked again.

"I-I don't think I would." Nurie answered, her eyes slipping to the table. "No."

"Really?"

"I've been this way my entire life! I can't seem to help it. Even when the right way is perfectly clear or I've been told exactly what I need to do, I always have to do it differently and I screw it all up. It's like a curse or something." Nurie slammed her hands on the table. "Do you have any idea what that's like?! Has it ever happened to you?"

"I don't and it hasn't." Yuko replied, folding her arms. "But who cares? We're talking about you not about me." Nurie's hands fell into her lap. "And regardless of the cause, this is what you see and perceive from the world. Your feelings and perceptions make your reality. You're life is a creation of your mind. What the vast majority of people call 'reality' is just a point of view they choose. The same thing is true of all of your feelings. Knowing this…do you still think you need to overcome what you feel?"

"Yes, yes I do! This whole situation is too weird and it puts a burden on everyone around me." The woman looked at her hands, fiddling with them in her lap. "And then this injury…"

"I wonder." Yuko interrupted, reaching her left elbow behind her to rest in on the back of her chair.

"Huh?"

"You say this situation puts a burden on everybody and I wonder what you mean. The only person I see this effecting, the only one bearing the burden…is you." Nurie's head snapped up in shock, her eyes wide.

"I…I don't-"

"Your happiness is your business. It's a promise you make and keep to yourself." The witch interrupted. "It is a reward you give to yourself after accomplishing what you've set out to do, achieving what you strive for. But if you fail to award yourself for what you accomplish, then you are essentially breaking a promise to yourself. It's like a breach in contract. Compensation must always be made, you must pay all of your debts in full, even to yourself." There's Yuko's catch phrase, Watanuki thought, listening intently to the conversation. "Therefore: you win the lottery? You should cash that ticket in. You're cheating yourself otherwise. Ten thousand yen should be paid for something worth ten thousand yen for example, just as something worth three hundred million yen should be paid with three hundred million. Even discounts and haggling destroys the balance."

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Yuko reached into her dress and pulled out the red glasses Watanuki had been sent to buy two days ago and set them in the center of the table.

"Hey! Those are-" Watanuki said, cutting herself off.

"What are these?" Nurie asked.

"They're magic glasses." Yuko answered, smiling. "If you wear these glasses regularly, you will always be able to tell which path is the right one to take. They will prevent you from making the wrong choice."

"Is that really the truth?" Nurie asked, her voice hopeful but not quite believing.

"Take them?" Yuko held her hand up, gesturing for the woman to do what she said.

"But I don't have any-" Yuko slid the glasses closer to her guest.

"It's fine." She insisted. Watanuki leaned down to Yuko's ear, holding up one hand to shield the noise of her whisper.

"But payment…?" She knew how the shop worked, and this exchange was not how the shop worked, nor was it how Yuko worked.

"It's up to you what to do. It's your decision to make. You can wear them if you want to, or you can just throw them away." Yuko ignored the girl and Watanuki stood up straight again, knowing that she'd been ignored. She was even reminding Yuko of what she was supposed to do in the first place! And what happened? She was brushed off! It was very depressing.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock.

"What was that all about? Seriously!?" Watanuki griped, sitting in the chair that Nurie had been sitting in a little white ago. Evening had fallen, the windows in the tower room fading to a deep purple with the sinking of the sun. Yuko was sipping at her coffee, having ordered Watanuki to make a pot of tea for her too and some snacks and a few glasses of whisky on top of that, which were now resting on the table. The witch hadn't moved from her chair the whole time the seer had been at her job.

"What was what?" The woman asked in turn, taking a drink of alcohol.

"You know what I mean!" The girl snapped back before taking on a more calm tone. "What there really something magical about those glasses?" I bought them from a one hundred yen store…did she do something to them to make them magical?

"Not at all. They were just a cheap pair of plastic glasses." Yuko turned her cranberry eyes on the girl. "You should know that, Watanuki. You're the one who bought them, aren't you?"

"Then why did you give them to her?" Yuko chuckled, taking another drink, the ice in her glass clinking about. "And on top of that, you not asking for payment is a little out of character."

"But there was payment." The witch replied.

"What are you talking about!?" Watanuki stood up, her chair sliding backwards with her motion and the girl slapped her hands on the table. Yuko picked up her pipe, the embers glowing from inside the bowl as she took breath of smoke and let it out.

"Do you remember that little talk we had yesterday about the lottery?" Watanuki nodded, still confused about just about everything. "Consider this situation: you're on your way to school one day and suddenly a perfect stranger approaches you saying, 'I'd like to give you one trillion yen, young girl!' Do you take him up on it or don't you?"

"Ug! Of course I don't take him up on it! Money just doesn't come out of nowhere!" The girl scowled, waving her hand in front of her face in rejection.

"What do you mean?" Yuko asked in an innocent voice that didn't match her character at all.

"It's too good to be true! It's got to be some kind of trick!"

"Exactly, that's my point." Yuko said.

"What?! I still don't get it!" Watanuki growled.

"In this case you're acting exactly like Nurie." Watanuki's face morphed from anger to a quiet disbelief. "You're rejecting happiness. Think for a moment. I didn't say this guy was a crook or a conman, I just said he wanted to give you money." Watanuki reached back and scooted her chair in before sitting down again, finally understanding where Yuko was coming from.

"Yeah but, anyone would be suspicious of that, Yuko. A fortune falling into your lap…"

"And why is that?"

"Because no one ever gets something for nothing, it's common sense!"

"That's right: if you're going to have great happiness, then great effort is required in exchange. That's called compensation." Yuko blew out another cloud of smoke. "You know, people are very fond of saying that life comes out evenly…for the good things in life there are the bad…for the bad things in life, there are always the good."

"Riiiight…" Watanuki nodded, having been told that or believe in a concept like that before.

"But that's not the whole truth." Yuko stated. Watanuki's face went completely blank.

"What's the truth?!" She asked quickly, wanting to know what secrets to life Yuko had stored in her brain (and she had a pretty good track record of being right to back her up).

"In order for you to be happy, you must be willing to accept the burden of an equal amount of unhappiness in exchange as your payment." Yuko hooked her elbow around the back of her chair as she talked, holding up her pipe in her other hand. "That's the instinctive reason we fear misfortune when things are going well, why we wait for the other shoe to drop. Just saying that there's good for bad and bad for good is a way of dodging responsibility." Watanuki waited for Yuko to go on, knowing that the witch was on a roll. "To put it another way: the more you achieve, the greater the demands that will be placed upon you in return. And if you don't meet those demands, you're not acting on good faith. But of course, on the other hand, if those demands start to outweigh the reward somehow, one should rest from the demands until the results once again justify the means." Yuko paused to take another smoke.

"Well, tell me this: I mean…I still don't understand though. This isn't about great happiness; this is just about someone who can't accept regular happiness!"

"Oh, that isn't the case. No Watanuki, this time it is all about balance."

"Balance?" Watanuki voiced her continuing confusion just as Yuko put her pipe in her mouth again, so the witch just talked around the mouthpiece.

"Anyone can be drawn in by the lure of self-destruction. It's a perfectly natural compulsion that anyone of us might experience. But don't think for a second that that is what's happening with this young woman. Whether very great or very small, fortune is a mixture of good and bad in our lives and no matter what, payment must be made for the things that are good." Yuko's eyes narrowed, her Cheshire Cat smile making an appearance. "Try as you may, but there is no way to avoid it. Understand? She's trying to run away. It's not that she's unable to accept happiness, she's just afraid of the payment if she does accept it. It's exactly as she told you: it's not as if she wants to fail, she just wants to dodge the reckoning." Yuko puffed her pipe yet again, her latest cloud of smoke lifting into the air.

"Hold on! You're saying she's trying to dodge the reckoning?" Watanuki almost-yelled. "She walked into traffic and got run over! How is that dodging?"

"True, but she only got hit by a motorcycle, didn't she?" Yuko pulled her pipe away from her face with that all-knowing look in her grin. Watanuki gasped indignantly, shocked at Yuko's unconcerned tone at someone else's misfortune. "And all she got was a hairline fracture."

"Well, sure, but still!"

"I think she very deliberately chose when to step out into the street. If she hadn't otherwise, odds are she would've stepped out into a truck and she'd have worse than a cracked forearm. Instead, she's okay and she rather handily got out of having to deliver that presentation at work. She dodged it, don't you see? She dodged all that pressure and all that responsibility. She dodged her big promotion as well."

"But she hit me!" Watanuki argued, blowing her fly-away hair out of her face as she did. "How does that-"

"So what?" Yuko said flippantly. "She took no real risk, you helped her. She could see how kind-hearted you are. She knew you weren't likely to get mad at a delirious invalid for hitting you on the head with a bunch of flowers." Yuko continued on, setting down her pipe and picking up the bottle of whiskey to pour herself another drink. "It's just like pulling the fire alarm at school. Sure, it's not something you're supposed to do, I know, but it's not like you pushed the launch button on a nuclear missile and started a war. At worst you'd get scolded. The same with failing a test. She messed up her chance for her first-choice university, but she had a second choice all lined up." Yuko really has her all figured out,I guess. "And suppose she had thrown that coffee at me, do you think she was running any real risk with that? She already knew that I had already been told that she was a very troubled individual. I wouldn't be surprised if she did something crazy. I'd probably even make allowances for her behavior and forgive her. Again, no real risk. Understand now?"

"I see." Watanuki's face dropped into a sad expression as Yuko's argument was laid out before her.

"It's just a pose. She's not really the sort of person who'd push a button without regard to what the consequences might be." The clock ticked behind the two women, the hands resolutely creeping towards eight o'clock.

"So will she be alright? Tell me." Watanuki implored her employer. "Will she be able to chose the right path from now on if she wears the glasses?"

"Come now," Yuko's ever-present smile widened. "I told you! They're just a regular pair of glasses!"

"Then why give them to her?"

"Someone like you who is used to wearing glasses doesn't notice them anymore. But it's a new thing for her…she can't help but be aware of them. It'll force her to stop and think."

"But what good will that do?"

"From the very beginning she's always know what was best for her even though she's refused to acknowledge that fact. But she'd been avoiding that subconsciously. Therefore, I tell her to wear the glasses, that makes her aware of what she's doing. It makes her think. So in a little while, she'll become aware of the consequences of her actions and as a result…her wish will come true."

"But I still don't get what her payment was!" Watanuki understood everything up to that point. Yuko not asking for a payment still had her stumped, but Yuko was saying now that her wish would be granted and therefore she had paid with something.

"Her freedom." Watanuki gasped softly at the witch's answer. "Hopefully from now on she'll hve no choice but to accept the responsibility that happiness places on her. She won't be able to run away. It's going to be very interesting to see if she can handle it. It'll be a new experience for her."

"So then you're saying that Nurie's problems were always of her own making? What about the spirits?"

"Nothing to do with it." Yuko sighed, turning in her chair to face Watanuki fully.

"But wait, what about that flash I saw!" The girl argued.

"A buckle on the strap of her handbag, of course!" Yuko chuckled as the clock struck eight, the gonging sound seeming to signal some sort of change occurring.

Outside the shop, Nurie was walking down the street, the glasses clutched in hand. Her shoes clicked on the sidewalk as she went along, her shadow following her in the light of the moon. She walked past several shops and restaurants before coming to a trash can. She stopped and looked at it, contemplating throwing the glasses in there and being completely done with the strange lady in the shop. She looked at the lenses, holding them up and then kept walking. The intersection where she wanted to cross to get to her bus stop and just switched lights and the cars zoomed past in front of her. She sighed and looked up at the Do Not Walk indicator, the little red man standing still until the light changed. She watched as several cars past her. Red ones, blue ones, white ones, yellow ones. Her foot came up, ready to step out into the street. She squeezed the glasses in her hand, the frames straining under the pressure. She looked down at the glasses as the shop owner's voice flitted through her head.

Go ahead and do it if you want to.

She closed her eyes, thinking very hard about her choice and held onto the glasses tighter. The cars kept passing and her foot stayed poised to step out onto the street. She opened her eyes after a long moment, resolute in her choice. Her foot came down. The light changed and the cars driving past her stopped, and the little red man turned green, allowing her to walk across if she wished. She did. She started walking, her shoes hitting the pavement softly. She crossed the street safely for the first time in a very, very long time.

To Be Continued...

Note 1: White and yellow tsubaki flowers in the Eastern flower language represent waiting and longing respectfully. Tsubaki are also known as camellia flowers in Western countries.

A/N: And there you go! I hope to get the next chapter up within the next two weeks like I had originally planned for my publishing schedule! Thanks for sticking with me so far and look out for my special Christmas fic this week! :3 See you next time!